Slavery in New York Traveling Exhibition

Recipient: Mirrer, Louise (New York, NY 10024 USA) in affiliation with New-York Historical Society

Goal: Planning for a national tour of a panel exhibition and public programs modeled after two exhibitions at the New-York Historical Society on slavery in New York from its early 17th-century roots through the aftermath of the Civil War.

Description: Slavery in New York comprises an exhibition, a series of related educational initiatives, special publications, and public programs, all of which promote a more comprehensive understanding of not only New York’s, but also our nation’s, involvement in human slavery. In order to further the reach of this important story, the Society created a panel exhibition specifically designed to travel (i.e. to libraries and small institutions), thereby reaching a number of people who would not normally visit the larger Slavery in New York exhibition at the N-YHS’s museum in Manhattan. In response to greater than anticipated, and nationwide, requests for this traveling form of the larger Slavery in New York exhibition, the Society wishes to create six (6) additional sets of the nine-panel exhibition for a national tour.

Grant: 181875 / LP-50009-07,   Category: American History,   Division: Public Programs,   Year Awarded: 2007

Words of Thunder: The Life and Times of William Lloyd Garrison and William Lloyd Garrison and the Ambassadors of Abolition

Recipient: Harrington, Chandra S (Boston, MA 02108 USA) in affiliation with Boston Public Library Foundation (Boston, MA 02116 USA)

Goal: Planning of two panel exhibitions with a catalog, a website, and curricular materials about William Lloyd Garrison, the radical abolitionist movement he founded in Boston in the 1830s, the African American abolitionists who influenced him, and the role of ideas in cultural change.

Grant: 181944 / LP-50010-07,   Category: American History,   Division: Public Programs,   Year Awarded: 2007

Vaulting Ambition: The Guastavino Family and America's Great Public Spaces

Recipient: Glover, Susan L (Boston, MA 02116 USA) in affiliation with Boston Public Library (Boston, MA 02117 USA)

Goal: Planning of a gallery exhibition and a traveling panel exhibition with related public programs about how a family of first-generation immigrants created a business that helped to design and construct many of America's iconic public buildings between 1895 and 1962.

Description: This Planning Project will plan an exhibition about the Guastavino Family, Spanish immigrants to America in 1881, who introduced cohesive construction and fireproof tile vaulting to the United States. Until 1960, the company was the creator of decorative and immensely effective domes and vaults in over 1,000 major buildings in the USA. The grant will fund curatorial meetings and design of an exhibition to be mounted at the Boston Public Library which will travel to the National Building Museum, and will then be converted into a traveling panel exhibition.

Grant: 184967 / LP-50013-07,   Category: Architecture,   Division: Public Programs,   Year Awarded: 2007

Rumors of My Death Are Greatly Exaggerated: The Life and Work of Mark Twain

Recipient: Augenbraum, Harold (New York, NY 10016 USA) in affiliation with National Book Foundation

Goal: Planning of reading and discussion and other programs to be held at 100 library or other community sites around the nation along with a traveling exhibition and an extensive website about Twain and his lasting cultural influence.

Description: The National Book Foundation, in conjunction with the Mark Twain House & Museum, seeks a planning grant of $39,972 of a total budget of $62,401 to plan "Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated...: The Work and Life of Mark Twain", a series of public programs that will explore themes in the work and life of Mark Twain (1835-1910) on the centennial of his death and the anniversary of his birth. The planning process will include: 1) a national planning meeting , 2) development of an honorary committee, 3) draft of a Twain timeline, 4) draft of a useable bibliography, 5) draft of a filmography, 6) a survey of institutional holdings, 7) an outline for a travelling exhibition, 8) a speakers list of scholars, 9) a plan for recruitment of venues, 10) research on a new Library of America volume, 11) draft of a participants' handbook, and 12) a corporate and foundation funding packet.

Grant: 184968 / LP-50014-07,   Category: American Literature,   Division: Public Programs,   Year Awarded: 2007

Indians of the Midwest

Recipient: Hosmer, Brian (Chicago, IL 60607-7109 USA) in affiliation with Newberry Library (Chicago, IL 60610 USA)

Goal: Planning of an interactive, multi-media website about the history and cultures of American Indians in the Midwest.

Grant: 179848 / LP-50004-06,   Category: Native American Studies,   Division: Public Programs,   Year Awarded: 2006

Reader, Writer, and Revolutionary: John Adams and his Library

Recipient: Brennan, Deirdre (Boston, MA 02116 USA) in affiliation with Boston Public Library (Boston, MA 02117 USA)

Goal: Planning of a traveling panel exhibition, adapted from a gallery exhibition at Boston's Copley Square Library, about John Adams' library and how his personal reading informed his political views.

Description: The Boston Public Library (BPL) requests funding from the NEH to plan a traveling facsimile-panel exhibition entitled Reader, Writer, and Revolutionary: John Adams and His Library, to be adapted from a 2006 gallery exhibition at the BPL-Copley Square. This exhibition will investigate the second president’s development as a lifelong book collector, avid reader, and commentator on the ideas and debates of the revolutionary period and will demonstrate to a national audience how the intellectual content and historical context of Adams’ reading reflected and informed his intellectual and political views.

Grant: 179867 / LP-50006-06,   Category: American History,   Division: Public Programs,   Year Awarded: 2006

Escape to Freedom: Underground Railroad History Camp

Recipient: Massey, Leslie (Batavia, OH 45103 USA) in affiliation with Clermont County Public Library (Batavia, OH 45106 USA)

Goal: Development and piloting of a one-week summer day camp for children in grades two through six exploring the history of the Underground Railroad in Ohio.

Description: The Get on Board:Escape to Freedom Youth and Family Program is a pilot project in which children grades 2-6 will participate in a half-day, weeklong camp at the Bethel, Ohio library branch. Through collaboration with humanities scholars, universities, museums and historical societies, this youth camp will engage children in an in-depth, hands-on exploration of major aspects of the Underground Railroad experience. Parents of campers will participate in parallel activities to broaden their knowledge of the Underground Railroad as well.

Grant: 179866 / LP-50005-06,   Category: American History,   Division: Public Programs,   Year Awarded: 2006